AUSTIN, TX -- In portions of the 19 states where corporal punishment is practiced in schools, the form of discipline is 50 percent more frequently used on children who are African American or who have disabilities, according to a new report co-authored by the University of Texas at Austin.

To reach that conclusion, the analysis examined 160,000 cases of corporal punishment during 2013-14. Corporal punishment — typically administered by striking a child with a wooden paddle — is still a widespread practice in disciplining children from pre-K through high school, according to the study by Elizabeth Gershoff of The University of Texas at Austin and Sarah Font of Penn State University.